


baby baby (i hate being alone)

by iyen



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Bad Boy Hwang Hyunjin, Shy Yang Jeongin | I.N, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, a bit swearing, felix is an angel, flirty hyunjin, not really euks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 01:24:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17132381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iyen/pseuds/iyen
Summary: Jeongin visits once and Hyunjin keeps wanting to see him again.(or the clothes store!au no one asked for)





	baby baby (i hate being alone)

**Author's Note:**

> i really wanted to write something for christmas so this came up, uh! anyways, i hope this warms up your winter. (〃 ω 〃)

The distressing 7AM alarm rings a remix of GOT7’s song which blasts throughout the bedroom and Jeongin springs up from his favourite abode only to slam a hand on his phone, sliding a hasty thumb across the flashing screen that causes him to squint.

He really isn’t a morning person but when the reason of setting his alarm at such a bright and early time on a freezing Saturday morning hits, only he recalls today is the launching of some KakaoTalk characters’ winter collection in SPAO, an overpriced clothing store that collaborates with many animations to suck up people’s money, Jeongin likes to quote as he simply falls for the same threat.

Instead of dragging himself similarly to a brainless dead would such as every school mornings, he bounces to the bathroom with the fullest energy and comes out later to stand by the closet. After an amount of indecisive fumbling in his wardrobe, Jeongin decides on the brightest yellow sweater together with the darkest pair of jeans to flaunt himself off for the day. He never tries too hard to look good when he already does, anyway.

He unlocks his door and tiptoes around in magenta socks to check if his housemate is awake, not something Felix would favour at the crack ass of dawn. Assuming Felix is still dead asleep, Jeongin leaves the house for the train stationed a few minutes walk away.

During the seemingly slow train ride, he continuously jumps from his Instagram to Twitter account, and back for any updates from the store or fans who possess the same craze. A video uploaded by a customer shows the atmosphere of the still closed store has already a short queue and Jeongin silently prays the line remains this length by the time he reaches.

It’s 9 AM sharp when he arrives at a longer queue and he scolds himself for not waking up earlier. He attempts to count the number of people ahead, helplessly thinking about the adorable Ryan and Apeach sticker packs as freebies entitled to the first hundred customers only.

An hour passes and the store front shutters roll up as an older female staff welcomingly directs her customers in one by another with a toothy smile. Jeongin buzzes with excitement as the queue cuts shorter and he gets nearer, the thought of adding some KakaoTalk characters’ merchandise to collection operation: gwiyeowo.

The store’s activity plays like in Jeongin’s mind weeks ago when SPAO first announced the collaboration on their Instagram page; a mess. It was undeniably chaotic. People fighting for the same piece of clothing, some pushing to reach for the hanging cotton jackets whilst others already speed-walking to the counter for payment with only coloured tees, probably just here for the adorable freebies. Jeongin is inexcusably inexperienced and he looks like a lost chick in the middle of this huge mess. Hence, he decided to start from the aisle with the least crowd, consisting of the most approving fashion for winter, warm cotton sweaters.

A hot pink piece with Apeach’s head printed manages to capture Jeongin’s attention so he begins searching for a size way larger than himself but gets interrupted by a younger staff who struts over. “Do you need help?” he grazes thin fingers over his ash dyed hair. “Oh. Y-Yeah. I’m just about to look for an extra large size,” Jeongin stutters from the amazingly great looks of the guy, damningly gifted by the heavens. He must’ve known Jeongin was staring because of the cocky grin that took over. “You seem really small for an L, though.”

Jeongin clenches his fists. “What are you saying!” his lips forms into an evident pout before turning to face the rack, “I like my sweaters oversized.” The guy mouths a word, cute, from what Jeongin makes out. It stains his cheeks a shade of pink. The latter proceeds to pull out the too large sweater.

“What about a winter jacket to go with? You’re gonna look like the fluffiest bun,” he quirks a brow in question and Jeongin swallows, this means he gets to be companied by prince charming for a longer time, right? Thinking about the sticker packs again, he shakes his head. “I’ll take a quick look around by myself,” he reaches for the sweater only to have the taller lift it over his head with an airy laugh. “No need to rush,” he leans in dangerously close to evade Jeongin’s space, “or you might miss out on the greatest offer,” he winks.

What the heck, Jeongin scrunches his little nose. He is flustered. A handsome store clerk is flirting with him in his working shift. Whatever. Jeongin has a soft spot for hot guys in ripped jeans. They stood so close he could almost _taste_ his cologne.

He leads Jeongin to another rack of colourful winter jackets where the spot again isn’t crowded, fortunately. “Mmm, what colour…” Jeongin taps a finger on his chin. “What about white, angel,” the guy tactlessly pulls one which would be fitting for Jeongin’s smaller figure this time but soon snaps his head towards the direction at the lines of, “Oi, Hyunjin! Fitting room needs more hands!”

He sighs and barely pushes the clothings into Jeongin’s arms. “Happy shopping, cutie. Try these on for me. You heard where I’ll be,” a wide grin returns on his face before he leaves for more work. If the guy continues to give Jeongin these endearing pet names, he would be in desperate dire for the floor to eat him up. He tightens his grip on the plastic hangers while trying to memorise the name, Hyunjin, if he did not mistake.

After boring around the store to collect a few different pieces of winter wear, he finally stops by the fitting room where Hyunjin is currently serving, as expected. He sees him yawning into his palm while yanking the customer’s hangers off the clothes for her to try on and when he spots Jeongin, he promptly offers the boy another shit-eating grin making him drop his gaze to his dirty pair of beige tennis shoes, feeling the tip of his ears burn.

Hyunjin does the same with Jeongin’s clothes but unlike with his other customers, he fixes beady eyes on Jeongin the whole time. “You’ll end up buying all of them because it’s impossible for you to not pull off everything in the store,” he says, hands busy. “Damn, wear a skirt for me,” and Jeongin almost chokes on air, swiftly snatching the clothes from Hyunjin where he only laughs. He advances to a vacant cubicle wordlessly. However, his panicked actions and flustered looks gave it all away.

Jeongin takes his sweet time in the cubicle, from calming his little heart to trying on different clothes he picked. He makes sure they all look at least decent on him. Sure, the KakaoTalk characters are cute, but he has got to be spending on the items he will wear. Screw the sticker packs. He’s gotten tons of free compliments from Hyunjin, his eye candy of the day. He exits the cubicle and half-expects for Hyunjin to jump on him. Instead,the man with bubblegum pink hair who called out for assistance earlier stood in his place and Jeongin is in denial if he said he isn’t upset. Returning a piece back to the staff with Chris on his name tag, he wonders why Hyunjin isn’t wearing one.

Jeongin approaches the counter to pay and encounters Hyunjin there. The latter hums a tune to the song from the speakers while attending to the barcodes. Jeongin only watches him until, “we’re launching the Harry Potter collaboration on December, keep it a secret. There’s also going to be a sale for winter clothings.”

This is obviously a sign Hyunjin wants him to return, but Jeongin would like to clarify that almost every college students are too broke for monthly visits. Maybe Hyunjin acts like this around other customers too to suck up their money. Jeongin doesn’t know. He hands Hyunjin his debit card and when he isn’t satisfied with the response, he slides not one but two sticker packs into Jeongin’s shopping bag. “I’ll see you again?” he asks, biting down on plump lips, “cutie, you have braces?” Jeongin feels very attacked.

 

 

It’s late noon when Jeongin reaches his dorm and Felix is by the stove, adding cheese and sausage to his ramen. “I thought you won’t be back till late so I didn’t cook your share,” he prepares to transfer the noodles into a clean bowl as Jeongin falls onto the couch with three fat shopping bags. “Ah look. You spent a little too much,” Felix flashes a look of dismay before coming over to place the bowl on the coffee table in front of Jeongin. “Have mine first.”

Jeongin is blessed to have Felix staying with him. What an angel. “Looks like I’ll have to live off eating your signature ramen everyday now,” he juts his lip out before holding the bowl in both hands, grateful from the radiating warmth. Felix clicks his tongue and passes him a pair of chopsticks before attending the stove.

“Hyung, winter is almost here and you’ve yet to have gotten any newer clothes,” Jeongin starts after his first slurp of noodle, “SPAO is having a sale next month.”

“Not every college students have the wealth, Jeongin,” Felix releases a pitiful sigh, adding the spice packet into boiling water. “You also never bring me to clothes shopping with you because you know that’s not what I like. Come on, bro.”

“That’s why it’s called a sale, hyung. They also told me the Harry Potter collection will be launching.”

“I’m not all for Harry Potter.”

“The guy’s really nice you know. I don’t think I was the first hundred customers but he still gave me two sticker packs.”

“Well I don’t think he’s even supposed to tell you about the Harry Potter collection when it hasn’t been publicly announced.”

“I know! So you’ll need some new clothes,” Jeongin whines when Felix plops next to him, prioritising his ramen to be eaten while it’s still hot. “Uh. No. You’re just going for the guy from what seems like it, Jeongin-ie,” he sips on the soup and winces when it scalds his tongue. “Please, hyung. I can’t spend much more, see this for yourself,” Jeongin nudges the shopping bags with his foot.

“Yikes. The guy’s your bait.”

“Please!” he whacks Felix’s thigh.

“Ow, man! Okay, okay! I’ll go with you. Gee. We’ll go, alright,” he must’ve been irked enough for his accent to be sounded. Felix is always soft for Jeongin and will end up giving in to him anyway and the younger only squeals about him being the best.

 

—

 

Jeongin did not appear on the day of the Harry Potter launch. Instead, he comes the next day without overlooking his dearest Felix hyung. The store is decorated this time with different christmas ornaments hanging around, santa hats on mannequins dressed up in the latest Harry Potter collection (which is probably sold out), and reindeer antlers forced on every staffs in the store.

“I thought I got ditched,” Hyunjin steals Jeongin away a minute after they stepped in. “Is that your money vacuum, Jeongin? There goes your money!” Felix shamelessly shouts from behind which only draws a mock laughter from Hyunjin, “Jeongin, huh? You’re such a talker behind my back.” Jeongin flicks the headband on his head and huffs. “Don’t touch, baby. I spent a long time trying to get this stupid thing to cooperate with my shit look,” Hyunjin slings an arm over the smaller’s shoulders and walks them away.

Jeongin is literally swimming in his hot pink Apeach sweater when he flails his hands, a gesture to hide his uneasiness from the pet name and Hyunjin craves death because being able to stand next to someone like Jeongin feels like bathing in fine crystal sugar.

“You don’t have a shit look. Don’t offend me.”

“Tsk, just trying to fish out a compliment from you,” Hyunjin grins with utmost pride before pulling the vexatious headband off his head to fix it on Jeongin’s. “Who was that anyways, baby?”

“That’s my boyfriend. Stop calling me baby.” 

“Liar. You’re redder than a tomato.”

Hyunjin proceeds to fix Jeongin’s bangs to his own liking, “don’t worry. I won’t be telling you to get anything. The store will have money coming in either way. Maybe you can just keep me company.”

“Do they hire you to suck up customers’ money. If that’s it I should consider sending in an application,” Jeongin puffs his cheeks as Hyunjin trails him to the corner of the store where a few open stock boxes are secluded. He resumes to work with hanging more christmas decorations on the wall. Jeongin watches with his arms crossed. “You’ll end up not getting proper payment because of distractions,” Hyunjin hints at himself. How does he boast himself so much with such confidence, what a guy. It makes up another reason for Jeongin to crush on him. He is smitten.

They accord Hyunjin to work in comfortable silence for a while except for the soft R&B music coming from the speakers. When he faces Jeongin again, he pushes a finger on the boy’s chin to tilt his head back to look at the greens he just hooked above them, probably purposefully. Jeongin wants to scream because he clearly knows the implication of this.

“It’s a mistletoe, baby,” Hyunjin retracts his hand to point at his cheek.

“You must be crazy—”

“Crazy for you. Come on. Christmas traditions are important. I’m only asking for a kiss here. Unless you want more,” he teases and the redness crawls up Jeongin’s neck. This isn’t what Jeongin doesn’t want either thus giving the crush he isn’t fully familiar with, apart from understanding his antics, a kiss wouldn’t harm.

Quickly leaning forward to give a peck on what he thought was going to be Hyunjin’s cheek, the rascal turned and a pair of the thickest lips pressed onto his supple ones. Jeongin squeaks, surprised. Hyunjin is very unexpected and so full of amazement if they were to date, Jeongin may suffer from a mini heart attack anytime of the day.

Hyunjin bursts laughing. “You’re so cute, Innie,” he tugs on a dumbfounded Jeongin’s cheek before leaving for the cash register. Jeongin’s heart races so fast he swore it soared out of his chest if it wasn’t for Felix to toss a pair of grey sweatpants in his face. “Why are you just standing here?” he squints, “and _how_  are you wearing those antlers?”

 

 

The bubblegum pink haired man appears later at the counter where Hyunjin busies himself with scanning the tags of Felix’s clothes. He was awfully chatty with Felix, both conversing in the complexities of the english language Jeongin could hardly understand. He only learnt that they were high school mates back from Australia.

Hyunjin assents a willing Chris to bag Felix’s newly purchased clothes just because he seemed overly enthusiastic. He tears a small piece of paper from the receipt rolls under the desk and slides it over the counter with a pen towards the still panicky Jeongin. “Your full name and number. For some lucky draw you wouldn’t want to miss out on.” They all noticed the baffled expression from Chris but Hyunjin only scoffs as he continues, “your friend seems a bit busy. We can contact him through you, right?”

Jeongin spares Chris a look as if asking for the approval he did not need. “Ya heard him. Lucky draw!” he laughs and playfully elbows Hyunjin where he scowls back at him.

When he goes back to chattering with Felix, Hyunjin leans over the counter to close up on Jeongin. “We’re launching the Hello Kitty collaboration on January, by the way,” he whispers, extending to retrieve his headband back to drop it on the counter. “I’m not really interested,” Jeongin murmurs, almost incoherently. Poor boy really needs to save up. “Yeah?” Hyunjin watches, with those hopeful eyes as Jeongin scribbles his details down on the paper, “you’ll look absolutely adorable in those red sweaters, though, little kitty.”

 

 

“See ya again, Felix!” Chris waves at the both of them after dealing with Felix. “See you, baby,” Hyunjin winks at Jeongin as Felix drags him out with a shopping bag. Jeongin releases a soft sigh from the thought of getting to see Hyunjin after another long ass month. “They really cut down the prices!” Felix exclaims and of course, his roommate wouldn’t come for some silly Hello Kitty collection. “I can’t believe Chan hyung works here, too. That’s super unexpected,” he adds on as Jeongin dwells on his sad yet unjust feelings that he assumes no one else would understand.

The agony of needing to save up money for his college expenses while coincidentally having his prince charming to work in a swanking store.

 

—

[09:24 AM] merry christmas eve, baby

are you free tmr??

 

[11:12 AM] hyunjin?

 

[11:56 AM] morning, sunshine

i never wear my tag at work

ur rly observant

[11:57 AM] theres no lucky draw btw

just wanted ur number

 

[12:01 PM] god, hyunjin

[12:03 PM] i’m free tomorrow

 

[12:03 PM] yeah im a god

great, baby.

its a date then

 

 

Jeongin reads from the notification bar, squeals, and slams his phone down on the mattress he was lazing on. Stumbling out of his room, he bangs on Felix’s door. “Hyung! Hyunjin is asking me out on a date tomorrow! I’ll have to cancel our plans!” Jeongin is in a spree of perfect happiness. He feels like floating.

“What!? You can’t leave me alone on christmas!” Felix groans.

 

**Author's Note:**

> nice comments motivate and make me super happy! <3


End file.
